Six Suggestions That Can Make You a Better Maker
A designer friend recently sent me a link to an excellent post by Eric Karjaluto on design.
The original post is design specific - and well worth reading - but it also struck me as completely relevant to programming, which I do professionally, and to a great deal else that I’ve done and tried to do over the years.
Here’s my version of the six suggestions:
1: Original ideas come as solutions to problems, not when you go looking for original ideas. Collect good problems.
2: The goal is not to impress people with the complexity of your ideas, but to stun them with their simplicity. There’s nothing better than an “obvious” solution that no one else has thought of.
3: Ideas are there to be shared. If you can take someone else’s idea to a new place, or someone can take something you’ve done and use it for a new purpose, then everyone wins. Ideas are not used up by being applied. Intellectual Property is Theft©
4: Always be growing your vocabulary and your capabilities - expanding the collection of things you’re confident you know how to do. This opens up new landscapes. If it isn’t in (or close to…) your repertoire then it won’t be in your imagination. You can’t want to do things you don’t know about.
5: Lose the fear of doing the wrong thing by minimizing the cost of doing the wrong thing. Errors are not the problem; expensive errors are the problem. Reduce the cost and increase the rewards of your mistakes. Then make plenty of them. If you don’t fail some (or most) of the time then you’re not trying hard enough.
6: Do something. Actually take the first step and see what the landscape looks like from there.